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A high-five is worth gold

There’s a great TED talk from the “That’s absurd!” playlist which is delivered by comedian and creator of Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd. Improv Everywhere is a New York-based group of individuals who go about creating “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”, one of the most famous being the no-pants subway ride which is well worth watching.

Another of the scenes involves a subway escalator high-five which had me in tears of laughter. I was inspired by this recently and decided to use the simple high-five as an incentive for my 6-year-old to make less mess when eating rice. Whenever we eat rice for dinner there is always a huge mess beneath his seat. After dinner we have a big battle getting him to clean it all up. One night this week I decided to bribe him with a high-five. I told him that if the floor was completely clean of rice after he had finished his dinner, then I would give him a high-five. Now this sounds like a really lame incentive but it was motivation enough for him. At one point he dropped a single grain of rice on the floor and as he got down on all fours to pick it up, he said, “Will I still get a high-five?”.